New Gaza Flotilla Vessel Sails: Freedom Flotilla Coalition Has Deep Ties to Hamas

The Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion has launched a new block­ade chal­lenge as activists aboard the ves­sel Han­dala attempt to break Israel’s mar­itime restric­tions on the Gaza Strip. On 13 July 2025, Times of Israel report­ed that the for­mer Nor­we­gian trawler depart­ed Syra­cuse port with approx­i­mate­ly 15 pro-Pales­tin­ian activists and human­i­tar­i­an aid sup­plies, plan­ning a week-long Mediter­ranean voy­age fol­low­ing last mon­th’s inter­cep­tion of the Madleen ves­sel car­ry­ing cli­mate activist Gre­ta Thun­berg. The arti­cle begins:

A Gaza-bound boat car­ry­ing pro-Pales­tin­ian activists and human­i­tar­i­an aid sup­plies left Sici­ly on Sun­day, over a month after Israel detained and deport­ed peo­ple aboard a dif­fer­ent ves­sel that had made a high-pro­file attempt to break the mar­itime block­ade on the Gaza Strip. The Han­dala left the port of Syra­cuse short­ly after 12 p.m., an AFP jour­nal­ist saw, car­ry­ing about 15 activists. It is oper­at­ed by the Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion, which also dis­patched the ear­li­er boat, the Madleen, on a mis­sion to chal­lenge Israel’s block­ade on the Strip. Sev­er­al dozen peo­ple, some hold­ing Pales­tin­ian flags and oth­ers wear­ing kef­fiyeh scarves, gath­ered at the port to cheer the boat’s depar­ture with cries of “Free Palestine.”

          Read more: https://www.timesofisrael.com/activists-set-sail-from-italy-in-fresh-attempt-to-challenge-gaza-blockade/

Key Points

• The Han­dala will sail approx­i­mate­ly 1,800 kilo­me­ters over a week in the Mediter­ranean, car­ry­ing med­ical sup­plies, food, chil­dren’s equip­ment and med­i­cine for Gaza
• Two mem­bers of France’s hard-left La France Insoumise par­ty are expect­ed to join the ves­sel at Gal­lipoli on July 18 dur­ing its Mediter­ranean voyage
• The pre­vi­ous Free­dom Flotil­la ves­sel Madleen was inter­cept­ed by Israeli author­i­ties on June 9 about 100 nau­ti­cal miles west of Gaza­’s coast after defy­ing warnings
• Israel detained and deport­ed 12 activists from the Madleen includ­ing Gre­ta Thun­berg and French-Pales­tin­ian MEP Rima Has­san, trans­fer­ring aid through approved over­land channels

Freedom Flotilla Coalition: Hamas Links Through European Networks

The Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion oper­ates as a glob­al net­work that has attract­ed sig­nif­i­cant scruti­ny due to key orga­niz­ers with doc­u­ment­ed Hamas con­nec­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly British-Pales­tin­ian activist Zaher Birawi, who has been iden­ti­fied by Israeli author­i­ties as a Hamas oper­a­tive since 2013 and was pho­tographed with for­mer Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2012. The coali­tion’s oper­a­tions are deeply inter­twined with the broad­er Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­work, which has been heav­i­ly rep­re­sent­ed in flotil­la oper­a­tions since 2010, with orga­ni­za­tions like the Turk­ish IHH serv­ing as key spon­sors despite being des­ig­nat­ed by the US gov­ern­ment as part of the “Union of Good” umbrel­la cre­at­ed by Hamas lead­er­ship to trans­fer funds to the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. Euro­pean com­po­nents of this net­work include the Euro­pean Cam­paign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), whose Dutch coor­di­na­tor Amin Abou Rashed was iden­ti­fied as a found­ing mem­ber of the Al-Aqsa Foun­da­tion in the Nether­lands, an orga­ni­za­tion whose assets were frozen in 2003 for col­lect­ing mon­ey for Hamas-relat­ed activ­i­ties. These con­nec­tions have mate­ri­al­ized in high-pro­file mis­sions fea­tur­ing promi­nent activists like Gre­ta Thun­berg, whose par­tic­i­pa­tion in the June 2025 Madleen flotil­la brought inter­na­tion­al atten­tion to what crit­ics describe as a pro­pa­gan­da oper­a­tion designed to legit­imize Hamas while por­tray­ing Israeli secu­ri­ty mea­sures as vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al law, demon­strat­ing how human­i­tar­i­an nar­ra­tives can be lever­aged to advance broad­er ide­o­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal objec­tives that align with Hamas’s goals of under­min­ing Israel’s secu­ri­ty mea­sures and inter­na­tion­al standing.

Exter­nal References:

1. • Lon­don-based ‘Hamas oper­a­tive’ behind Gre­ta Thunberg’s Gaza flotil­la – Tele­graph

   • Euro­pean Hamas oper­a­tive behind Gaza flotil­la – i24News

   • Lon­don-based Hamas oper­a­tive linked with flotil­la – Jerusalem Post

   • Pro-Hamas activist Birawi named as key “Madleen” orga­niz­er – Glob­al Influ­ence Ops

   • UK-based Hamas activist lead­ing Euro­pean influ­ence ops – Glob­al Influ­ence Ops (GIOR)

   • UK secu­ri­ty brief­ing iden­ti­fy­ing PRC as Hamas-linked – We Believe in Israel

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.